


Omit: a reference to the unspeakable vice of the greeks.

by emef



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/pseuds/emef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Chandler sees Miles looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omit: a reference to the unspeakable vice of the greeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [skatingthinandice](http://skatingthinandice.tumblr.com/) for beta!

One day, Chandler sees him looking.

They're working on a case about unavowed desire. An inexplicable series of incidents, all involving unresolved sexual tension. They haven't figured out how or why all the deaths have this element in common, but there it is. Ed has taken to using the basement hallway as an extension to his office, and the wall is covered with etchings of incubi and succubi, heaving bosoms and ripped bodices. The board in the incident room is full of tales of inappropriate passions, urges, longing, wrong things; just wrong, some of them.

Miles thinks how sad it must be to have truly inappropriate desires - not just embarrassing, but wrong, like desiring children, or animals. Desires that don't just bother you - desires that consume you. He thinks what a relief his own sad little life is.

The board is covered in a variety of victims. It doesn't only have criminal acts - it has stories like the one of the man pining for his sister's husband, and the one of a man hopelessly infatuated with his secretary of twenty years. (The man had been married, with three children, and had never so much as kissed his employee's cheek at a Christmas party, but his infatuation had ripped him apart. Miles can't stop thinking about that one.)

Normally, Miles hardly thinks of his own desires. They're just there, and he puts up with them. He carries on, and sometimes, it's almost like he forgets them. But some days, he looks at Chandler, and Miles feels like he's choking. It doesn't matter if Chandler is all the way on the other side of the room, or if he is so near Miles that he could whisper and only Miles would hear. Miles can't breathe.

It's something about the way Chandler depends on him. It makes Miles crazy. Chandler says things to Miles, admits things Miles knows he would never say to anyone else. He tells Miles everything, like he trusts him. He just... trusts him.

Miles doesn't know when it happened, but he's become possessive about it. He rarely lets himself think about it, but when he does... When he lets himself think about it, he can't stand the thought of Chandler confiding in someone else. 

And normally, Miles just carries on. It's almost like he forgets the way Chandler makes him feel. He's never breathed a word of it to anyone.

But sometimes, Miles wonders if it would be easier just to tell someone. At least then he wouldn't have to keep this inside anymore. Sometimes he thinks that, as much as he hates them, maybe he should talk to a -

Wait a minute. "Oi! You lot! Did the victims have one of those, what do you call them, counsellors? Therapists? That kind of thing?"

*

Later, when they've arrested a therapist and everyone else has gone, Miles wanders through the hallway, not quite ready to go home. He puts his hands in his pockets and tries to remember what the world was like before he'd ever met Chandler.

But then Miles steps back into the incident room, and there he is: Chandler, all alone. The whole immaculate, breathtaking shape of him; taking down photos from the board. Or rather - that's what he must have been doing, but now he's just standing there, holding a photo in his hands.

There's something about the nape of Chandler's neck - how can the man be so tall, so posh, so ranked... and look so helpless? He looks like... He looks...

Chandler turns then, and Miles realizes that his heart is beating faster, faster. Chandler looks at him, and Miles doesn't know what he sees, but Chandler's face shifts, and he looks down again, at the photo. Miles realizes that it's a photo of that man and his secretary - a candid shot, taken without the man's knowledge - she can't see him, and he is gazing at her in a way that leaves no doubt as to his feelings. It's poignant, and sad.

Chandler looks up again. Normally, Miles would be taking his eyes off him. He'd be telling Chandler off for doing the office clerk's job. Telling him to join the constables at the pub. He'd be telling him to take his own advice for once, and go home and get some rest. Telling him something, something normal, and he'd looking the other way. He'd be finding something to do with his hands, some excuse to explain his presence, something, anything, anything at all. Normally, Miles would be able to do that.

But he can't. And Chandler sees him looking. He sees him, and he... He...

He says: "...Miles."


End file.
